Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It is Saturday, July 9.
Here’s a look at the top stories of the last week
A new type of vaccine developed at Caltech aims to ward off novel coronaviruses even before health officials are aware that they exist. When tested in mice and monkeys, it trained the animals’ immune systems to recognize eight viruses at once — and induced immunity to viruses they had never encountered. The findings could lead to a powerful tool against a virus that mutates too quickly to be contained with current vaccines. An international vaccine foundation has pledged $30 million to begin clinical trials of the experimental vaccine in humans.
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Meanwhile, super-infectious subvariants pushed L.A. coronavirus cases to their highest level in five months. The county’s case rate hit the high point over the Fourth of July weekend, a troubling sign of how the Omicron strains are creating conditions for a fraught summer. Subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 have become dominant nationwide, and they appear to be among the most contagious yet.
Much of Northern California received only two-thirds of its normal rainfall for the last three years. Some places, such as Ukiah, Santa Rosa and Mount Shasta City, did even worse, logging about half or less of their normal precipitation. In other drought news: L.A. won a battle with Mono County as a state appellate court reversed a judge’s ruling that would have required the L.A. Department of Water and Power to conduct an environmental review before making annual decisions about deliveries of water on pastureland it owns east of Yosemite — a decision that dismayed both environmentalists and ranchers. Also, California regulators have begun curtailing the water rights of many farms and irrigation districts along the Sacramento River.
A federal judge in California threw out Trump-era rollbacks on endangered species. The judge eliminated the rules even as two wildlife agencies under President Biden were reviewing or rescinding Trump-era regulations. Under the former president, officials rolled back protections for the northern spotted owl, gray wolves and other species, actions that Biden vowed to review.
Tax cuts and other reforms are coming to the California cannabis industry. Authorities aim to revamp a system that businesses, growers and others say has been stymied by regulation. A bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom cuts a cultivation tax placed on cannabis growers and shifts excise tax collection from distributors to retail businesses, according to an industry group.
California airports are set to get $100 million to upgrade terminals and roads. The grants were announced in Los Angeles by U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. LAX will receive $50 million for a multiyear project to increase passenger capacity by reconfiguring and repaving roadways around the airport, along with upgrading the entrance to the central terminal area parking. Additionally, Long Beach Airport will get $10 million; San Diego International Airport, $24 million; and San Jose International Airport, $10 million.
L.A. County supervisors are poised to ask voters for the power to remove sheriffs from office. Under a proposed change to the county’s charter, which would need approval of voters in November, the board would assume the authority to force out a sitting sheriff if four of the five supervisors agree that the sheriff is unfit for office. The move highlights how bitter and dysfunctional the relationship between Sheriff Alex Villanueva and county leaders has become.
A labor shortage has hit California’s public pools. When the heat hits, public swimming pools become vital refuges for tens of thousands of families, many of modest means. But because of bureaucratic red tape and the aftermath of pandemic shutdowns, many pools statewide don’t have enough lifeguards. If pools are closed, families are going to take their dips in rivers or lakes where there are no lifeguards, some safety experts say, and drownings could spike. California is also hobbled by certification requirements that don’t easily allow “Bay Watch” lifeguards to become “Pool Watch” lifeguards. A bill would allow ocean lifeguards to work at public pools during off-seasons.
Is it the beginning of a road revolution? Los Angeles officials have temporarily closed a stretch of Griffith Park Drive, which cuts through the heart of the park — eliminating car traffic in an effort to improve safety for cyclists, runners, hikers and equestrians.
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USC and UCLA have defected to the Big Ten. Here’s a look at questions surrounding the move, including: Which football divisions will UCLA and USC slip into? Is the Big Ten really a better basketball conference than the Pac-12? Is there any way to avoid all the frequent-flier miles associated with a bicoastal conference? What you need to know.
Newsom launched his first television ad of the general election. But not in California. The ad aired thousands of miles away, in Florida, fueling speculation that he wants to run for president — or, at a minimum, to troll the state’s Republican leaders. In the ad, Newsom contrasts the policies in California and Florida while images flash of former President Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis, potential 2024 presidential candidates.
Newsom pardoned Sara Kruzan, who was imprisoned as a teen for killing the man who trafficked her. Since leaving prison, Kruzan has become a national advocate for changing the way the criminal justice system treats kids and for reforming laws that ignore the abuse of sex trafficking when it comes to sentencing.
A group of social and data scientists developed a machine learning tool it hoped would better predict crime. The scientists say they succeeded, but their work also revealed inferior police protection in poorer neighborhoods in eight major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The oldest Magellanic penguin at the San Francisco Zoo died at age 40. Captain Eo was one of the oldest penguins living under human care in the world. The species are expected to live 20 to 30 years. Captain Eo was the last remaining founding member of the zoo’s Magellanic penguin colony.
Captain Eo at the San Francisco Zoo.
(Associated Press)
ICYMI, here are this week’s great reads
A billion pounds of California almonds are stranded at ports. Roughly 7,600 farms in the state produce 82% of the world’s almonds. But they don’t get paid until their product gets delivered in robust markets like the European Union, China, India and the United Arab Emirates. “We’re running into a delivery and cash-flow crisis,” said one industry executive. “If we can’t tackle this problem, our products will be replaced with something else.”
O.C.’s Vietnamese homeless people feel like outcasts in a culture of family and achievement. A ragtag group — many of whom lived through the devastation of the Vietnam War and came to the U.S. as refugees in their teens — have converged on Little Saigon, drawn by familiar foods and the ease of communicating in their native language. They bed down on sidewalks or in alleys. In a culture anchored by family ties, career achievement and a strong work ethic, they are outliers. Jobless, often estranged from loved ones, they beg for dollars or banh mi sandwiches. The shame can deepen their isolation.
Today’s week-in-review newsletter was curated by Amy Hubbard. Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to [email protected].
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